


a retirement arc

by The_Cursed_Blade



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Little bit of angst, Phil Needs a Hug, Phil visits Techno, Techno makes everything in his house himself, Techno needs a hug, no beta we die like men, retirement arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29280777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Cursed_Blade/pseuds/The_Cursed_Blade
Summary: Techno lives a peaceful life in the snow.  It's a bit lonely, but Phil visits.---idk man i just needed to write this to feel something happy and even then i added a little bit of angst
Relationships: Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF)
Kudos: 52





	a retirement arc

The house would have to do. It wasn't beautiful, but he didn't care about beauty here. He cared about having a home. Technoblade stood outside in the snow, looking up at the house that he had just finished working on for the day. His things were in a pile in the basement. There would be time for decorating later. For now, this would have to be enough. He walked into the basement and pulled out a couple of boxes and chests that he knew he wanted upstairs. He dragged everything up the stairs, piling it on the main floor of the house, and then started taking up the boxes that he wanted in his bedroom up there. Up on the top floor, his bedroom was small, compact.

It left room for spare rooms. They were empty, but he figured he would need a guest room, maybe a storage room up there. He wasn't certain. But there was time to figure it out now that no one would be bothering him. Now that he was blissfully alone.

He took a deep breath and laid down on the pile of blankets that he had brought up. There were materials for a mattress that he could make, but he was too tired to make it. So he closed his eyes and let himself drift off. No one could tell him that he couldn't nap in the middle of the day.

\---

When he woke up, he had his hand on a sword and he felt like the walls were closing in. But he remembered that the fighting was over. There was no war here. He took his hand off the sword and stood up. He hadn't had dreams while sleeping until this point and he hadn't expected that. He rubbed his face before he looked at the house and thought about the things that he still had to get done.

He sighed, but kept on working, put together the kitchen, making it a functional space, nothing beautiful. He did the same with his bedroom after he put together the mattress. The space would be enough for the moment. More than once, he walked past the spot where he had hung up his armor and paused. He looked at the armor, wanted to put it on, wanted to feel safe again. But unless it was night, he was safe and sound outside of his house. He knew it, but the paranoia was still deep in his bones.

He hadn't left people with the best image of him. He wouldn't be surprised if they came for him one day, but they'd have to find him first and no one was going to be able to find him out here. Well, there was one. He had given the coordinates for his new home to a friend of his, Phil. But Phil would be careful. He probably had burned the letter with the coordinates and had them committed to memory. Techno wasn't holding his breath for Phil to come to see him. He wasn't sure that he wanted anyone to come here right now while the house was just a shell and filled only with junk, laying around in random heaps.

One day, he'd build a greenhouse and get a nice garden going. He had liked farming once upon a time long before he had come to this land and getting back into it would be the best way to spend his time. Maybe it would be a way to redirect his focus from fighting to living.

_ blood blood blood blood blood not potatoes blood blood blood _

He shut his eyes for a moment and shook away the thoughts before he headed back inside, continuing to make the things that he needed for his home here.

The days fell into a lazy pattern of him sleeping in a bedroom that slowly became more and more of a room. First the bed, then a closet, then storage, then a desk, then bookshelves. And the rest of the house slowly filled, cabinets in the kitchen and a table near the window, a set of seats near the fire, pillows, and more blankets. He filled the basement with chests and organized the things that he brought, the leftover supplies that he didn't need. Slowly but surely the place around his home felt familiar, felt comfortable. And the armor in the corner didn't call to him nearly as often.

But even in the peace, there was still anxiety. Techno, sitting alone with a book in his kitchen, could hear something outside. And his eyes slid to the armor in the corner of the room. He stood up and grabbed his ax off the wall, walking to the door and opening it. There was nothing there, just the whisper of the wind. Techno walked down the stairs and then did a circle around his house. He patted Carl as he passed his little pen, but there was nothing around the house. With a sigh, Techno went back inside, locking the doors behind him and climbing up to his bedroom to finish his book in the quiet of his room until the sun was coming up. He couldn't sleep, not with the anxiety eating him up.

\---

He was still working on improving the house when he spotted Phil in the distance. His old friend was wearing an old familiar cloak and the thought sent Techno back to years past, but there was no war here, just two friends meeting up.

"Hey mate," Phil said, "I didn't mean to take so long to get out here, but you know how those kids are." Phil laughed and Techno matched the laugh, but he's lost in thought, remembering life before the last war. It was a better time, full of laughter and people. But there was something about those days that felt stilted now like it was too good to have ever been true. Techno invited Phil in, but even when they were inside, Techno kept his ax at his side, thinking that he was hearing someone else out there.

"Did anyone see you come out this way?"

"Not likely. I left out a part of town that not a lot of people care about or live near."

Techno nodded and put the ax back near the door where he could grab it. "I'm...god Phil it feels like it's been years since I've seen you."

"It's only been...a couple weeks, mate. Are you doing okay living out here on your own? I could move out here if you wanted."

"No, it's probably better for someone to be near L'manberg. They're probably not happy with me, right? It's selfish, but I'd just want to know if they were coming this way."

"Of course, mate. I'm happy to do anything for you, but let me know if you want me to stop living over in L'manberg." Phil offered him another smile.

For a second, Techno found himself looking for something in Phil's eyes like there was something that was going to betray him. And then he stepped forward and wrapped Phil in a hug. "I think I need to be around people like you more often." The sentence was quiet and he closed his eyes as Phil hugged him back.

"I would agree there, mate. You've had shit luck with people lately. I'll always be here, but you're going to need more than me to balance out all the bad that you've gone through." Phil patted his back. "But for now, we can start here. Let's have some tea and chat for a bit, catch me up on what you've done out here."

Techno pulled back and straightened up. And then he nodded at Phil and turned around to show him the kitchen and everything that he had built. Once they were sitting at the table with tea, they both looked outside at the landscape, the night was descending on the area. It was beautiful at night, but then there was something else, the green-blue of the aurora borealis shone above the area. Techno hadn't seen it yet, so when he could see it out the window, he stood up and grabbed his cloak as he went outside. Phil followed him. The two of them stood under the stars, looking up at the sky.

"You picked a good place," Phil said, "I didn't think I'd see this around here."

"Brings me back to when we were adventuring before." Techno stared up at the stars. He had certainly gone a lot of places, brought a lot of destruction. "Do you think I can change, Phil?"

"Change?" Phil turned his eyes away from the sky and looked at his friend. "You mean not be at war every second of the day?"

Techno nodded, then looked back at the house.

"You haven't been at war for weeks, Techno. You've picked a peaceful life for once."

"Yeah but I don't think it can last. Whether it's because of what I did to L'manberg or because of my skill, someone's going to come looking for me one day and they're going to want to make me pay for what I've done or make me further the violence that they started."

Phil was quiet as he walked back into the house. Techno followed him quietly, wondering what Phil could want from inside of the house. "Look around at what you've done, mate. If you don't think that this is progress towards a less violent future, then I don't know what to tell you. And even if you fight again, I hope it's for something you believe in, something that makes you feel something. Not just because Tommy or Wilbur or whoever asks you to step into their fight." Phil opens the bag that he brought with him and pulls out a couple of books and a notebook. "But before you start another fight, let's go ahead and think about adding something to your home. How about a small apiary?"

"Can the bees even survive in this cold?" Techno asked before he reached out for the other books to look at their spines. One of them was on bee-keeping but the other ones were mythology books, one that Techno had had before.

"I think we can design a place that will keep them safe and warm up here." Phil opened the notebook. "I also brought some of your favorite books since I wasn't sure if you had found other copies for sale since you had moved." He placed the notebook down, showing the designs that he had sketched for Techno.

"Do you want to stay for the night and we can make this tomorrow?" Techno asked.

"That was my plan all along." Phil grinned.

"Let me just go make sure that the spare room is set up for you, then."

"Alright, I'll work on turning whatever food you have here into a meal. And no I'm not making baked potatoes." Phil was already walking into the kitchen, rolling up his sleeves.

Techno laughed and then took the books and walked upstairs. He set the books down on the desk in his room before he went to the spare room. It had been made up for weeks, but he tidied it, made it look like he had done a little work today instead of having it prepared for Phil a week ago.

Downstairs Phil hummed loudly as he cooked. And Techno had to stop and sit on the stairs for a second. For a moment, he could remember Pogtopia with Wilbur and Tommy. And even if that had ended in tragedy, he did mess the company. He could almost imagine the two of them here with him and Phil, the shouting that would fill the house, the laughter. But one of them was a traitor and the other was dead. There was no place for them here. Maybe in a different life, they would be here too.

"Food's ready!" Phil called.

Techno took a breath. "Coming." He stood up and he walked down the stairs and when he walked to the table, he opened his mouth like he was going to ask Phil about Tommy or how Phil was doing after killing Wilbur. But when he saw the slight sad tinge in Phil's eyes, he changed his mind. "Have you seen my original copy of The Art of War by Sun Tzu? I thought you last had it with all my notes in it, but I couldn't find it anywhere."

"I'll have to check my house when I go back."

And they ate in comfortable silence together. Phil was the first one to head up to go to sleep, but Techno sat in the living room, staring out the window at the night that just kept going. It was somehow easier and harder with Phil here. He wanted to stay up and watch the door, but he felt safe at last. He wasn't alone. There was another person.

But it only lasted so long. He fell asleep holding onto one of the books that he had had before, something precious and dear to him. He woke up to the smell of food and when he walked downstairs in a daze, he was surprised that Phil was already up and cooking.

"We need to get started if we want to get all of the apiary stuff done today," Phil said.

"Right," Techno said with a yawn as he sat down at the table. "But did you consider that I am a retired man who does not have a schedule and that waking up this early is not going to go over well for my productivity?"

"You've had a shit sleep schedule for as long as I've known you."

"I'm a changed man, Phil. This is part of my retired life. Why are you trying to make me work right now?"

Phil just laughed. "Come on, mate. You'll have so much honey for your tea and toast and whatever."

"True."

Their meal was full of stories, memories of the past, battles that they had fought and won, places that they had gone, old friends that they had known. And when they went outside and started construction, Phil continued telling stories, but of the people in L'manberg and what they were doing. Some of them were interesting, but it was noise. And Phil knew that there needed to be noise. At the end of the day, Phil was able to track down a hive that he transported to the apiary and they listened to the buzz of them for a little bit before Phil went inside. Techno followed him slowly, not wanting the day to end, to be back in the silence of the artic area.

But he knew that Phil needed to go back. He didn't go straight to the first floor but walked into the basement where one of the chests contained the precious things that he had gathered and lying on top was an emerald earring that he had made a couple of days ago, metal wire designs wrapped around the gem. It was fitted to be used on a necklace or earring or something. He didn't know what Phil would want, but he thought that Phil might appreciate the gift, something small, a reminder that Techno was still out there. He held it in his hand and walked upstairs.

"Alright, mate," Phil said with his bag on the table, "I should go. It's already getting pretty dark out there."

"Before you go, here," Techno said, "Just a little something. Not a big deal, just thought it matched the colors that you started wearing here." He held out his hand to Phil, the emerald shining in the light.

"Maaate," Phil said, taking the gem from him. "I love it. You must be bored out here if you're getting crafty. Thanks. I'll make sure I come back out here again so that you can show me whatever else you make while you're living this retired man life."

Techno smiled. "Sounds good, I'll find some new skills to blow you away with."

"You better. I won't accept anything mediocre from you." He laughed at that.

"I'll even show you that my potato farming skills are only getting better," Techno laughed. "But have a safe trip back home, Phil. No getting hurt out there, yeah?"

"Of course, mate," he said. "I'll be safe."

"And if you see a small zombie, I want you to run fast."

Phil laughed so hard that he doubled over. "Of course." When he collected himself, he picked up his bag and walked out the door. Techno opened the window and watched out it as Phil walked off into the distance. He didn't look away from the window until he couldn't see Phil anymore.

And then the house was empty again. But it wasn't as lonely for some reason. That night, wrapped up in blankets in his room, Techno dreamed of peaceful days when he helped friends. And when he woke up, he didn't dwell on their loss, he just focused on the things he was doing out there in the snow.

"Fighting for something I believe in..." He looked at the armor in the corner of the room and he put it on before he went to the portal. He believed in himself and he would make sure that he was ready when he needed to fight for himself one day. It was only a matter of time after all.

**Author's Note:**

> two oneshots in two days, but no udpates on the other fics because my brain said 'no <3'
> 
> I'll be working on the other fics during the week and getting at least one update each out, but if there are fluffy fics you guys want to read, please tell me. My brain keeps making all the fluff angsty and I just want to write fluff aaaaaaaa
> 
> anyways, thanks for reading


End file.
